Khế Iêm
Stepping Out
Essays On Vietnamese Poetry
___________
Bước Ra
Tiểu Luận Thơ Việt
A Bilinggual Edition
Ấn Bản Song Ngữ
Tan Hinh Thuc Publishing Club
2012
Tan Hinh Thuc Publishing Club
P. O. Box 1745
Garden Grove, CA 92842
World Wide Web Site
http://www.thotanhinhthuc.org
©2012 by Khế Iêm
All rights reserved
Cover: Painting of Nguyễn Đại Giang
Cover design: Lê Giang Trần
Khế Iêm, back cover photo: DoVinh
Khế Iêm
Stepping Out: Essays On Vietnamese Poetry
Bước Ra: Tiểu Luận Thơ Việt
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012951851
ISBN 978-0-9885096-0-3
STEPPING OUT: ESSAYS ON VIETNAMESE POETRY
_______________________________________________
AN INTRODUCTION TO A BRIEF LITERATURE
AND VIETNAMESE NEW FORMALISM POETRY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
_____________________
Vietnamese New Formalism is different from American New Formalism in which meter and rhyme still remain. Actually, we utilized the term “New Formalism” only to introduce the Blank verse
form of English poetry to Vietnamese poetry. But Vietnamese
blank verse is also different from English Blank verse because of
different languages and metrical forms. These essays introduce to
international audiences a brief view of Vietnamese literature and
Vietnamese New formalism poetry, and hope to propel Vietnamese poetry onto the international stage. I would like to thank poet
and translator DoVinh. Especially I would like to give my thanks
to editors Carol J. Compton and Richard H. Sindt for their edits
and comments.
CONTENTS
__________
MỤC LỤC
Introduction To Vietnamese New Formalism Poetry
A Review After 10 Years
Giới Thiệu Thơ Tân Hình Thức Việt
Nhắc lại – 10 năm
New Eclectic Style
Phong Cách Tân Chiết Trung
9
8
43
42
How to read Vietnamese New Formalism Poetry
Thơ Tân Hình Thức Đọc
61
60
Vietnamese Love Story From Traditional Pre-war
to New Formalism Poetry
Thơ Tình Từ Tiền Chiến Đến Tân Hình Thức
73
Heaven and Earth Amisdt Storms
Thuở Trời Đất Nổi Cơn Gió Bụi
85
84
Stepping Out From A Literary Tradition In Decline
Bước Ra Từ Nền Văn Học Suy Tàn
105
104
Comporary Vietnamese Poetry
On The Path Transformation
(A Portrait Of Vietnamese Literature)
121
Thơ Việt Trên Đường Biến Đổi
(Hay Bức Tranh Văn Học)
120
72
7 • Bước Ra
Introduction To
Vietnamese New Formalism Poetry
A Review after 10 Years
___________________
To poets Đỗ Quyên, Inrasara and Lê Vũ
N
ew Formalism is an American poetry movement begun in
the early 1980s and developed through the 1990s, lead by
a number of young poets composing in the traditional style. But
why New Formalism and not some other movement? Traditional
Western poetry, began with Homer (his two works The Iliad and
The Odyssey, each written in 16-syllable verses), and then followed with free-verse with the American poet Walt Whitman (towards the end of the 19th century). Free-verses, throughout the
20th century, developed strongly in United States after the Second
World War with many advant garde movements, withered at the
end of the century, and created reactions and revivals of the meter
in poetry.
English is a strong-stress and poly-syllabic language with emphasis on consonant sounds. Poetic form depends upon the number
of syllabic sounds in a verse, for example, a common form has
10 sounds, iambic pentameter (unstress, stress repeated 5 times),
from verse to verse with end-rhymes. If there are no end-rhymes,
then it is called blank verses. Vietnamese poetry in the 5-word,
7-word, 8-word or alternating 6-word and 8-word form breaks up
the verses according to the word count. Vietnamese is a mono-syllabic language; therefore, its poetic form, besides having rhymes
at the end of a verse, may be organized according to the inflections
of level / oblique tones.
9 • Bước Ra
Poetry comes before poetic rules. From antiquity, poetry has been
developed alongside musical instruments such as lutes and flutes,
and people sang it as a song. Later on, even when music and
words were differentiated, the relationship between words and
music remained as rhythm and sounds, between the practical and
the aesthetics, long-standing traditions that have been passed down
from generation to generation, becoming poetic rules. That is why
poetic rules, simplified as rhyme schemes, as end-rhymes, are innate in the heart of the reader and the poet. Once these principles
are codified, in much the same way as musical notations, the skill
of the poet is to marry words and ideas such that, when the poem
is read, there is a spiritual dimension reverberating through, rising
to the level of goodness. Free-verse came into being with the desire to escape from the traditional rhythm and rhymes; the goal of
making poetry new replaced the standard of making it good. So,
to make rhymed verses new or to reform them is to corrupt poetry,
and we can only replace the standard of goodness with a different standard. Like modern art, the traditional notion of beauty is
replaced by the drive to create, to make anew.
Poetry in any age goes through the cycle of flowering and decline. Rhymed poetry after a long period of time goes into retreat because social conditions change; poetry can no longer express human emotions, and free-verse poetry is given a chance
to be born. Modern Western-style free-verse poetry and painting
is compatible with the spirit of conquest (towards the end of the
19th century) and confrontation (during the cold war period) and
the development of science and technology, resulting in two world
wars. The period of confrontation created extremism and anomalies in American post-war poetic activities, which are biased toward free-verse, pushing aside meter and rhyme poetry, viewing
them as an obsolete form of poetry. Meanwhile, in other countries
such as England, free verse and meter / rhyme verse developed
side by side.
Stepping Out • 10
The rise of New Formalism movement helped American poetic
activities regain their balance. But, after a period of revival in
rhymed verses, some American poets thought that it was not necessary to adhere to any terms but that it was sufficient for poetry
to be good. So, after all, is “New Formalism” just a revival of
past traditions? “New” here means “retro”. The key principles
of rules, like enjambments, rhyme-schemes, even everyday and
common language already exist from the Romantic period early in
the 19th century, with William Wordsworth’s blank verses. Freeverse poetry, the Imagists at the start of the 20th century, with
poets like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, also promotes the use of
common language and precise words in poetry. Language usages
vary over periods of time. When everyday language is infused into
poetry, poetry is given new life, captivating the reader and resurrecting rhymed verses. These successes cannot be overlooked;
they are a major contribution. Another reason is that readers in the
information age are no longer impressed with the new aspects of
poetry, so the poet must return to the standard of good poetry, with
real talents, in order to preserve poetry.
What about Vietnamese New Formalism Poetry? In Spring 2000,
in the special edition of the Vietnamese Journal of Poetry entitled
“Encounter with a New Millennium”, Vietnamese poets utilized
the term “New Formalism” to introduce to Vietnamese poetry the
Blank Verse form of English poetry. To accept a new form of poetry is to accept the methods of composition, applying new principles: enjambments, repetition, prose narration, and the use of
common language.
1/ In English poetic forms, the enjambment technique is very common as compared to line-break in free-verse poetry. When adapted
to Vietnamese poetry, this technique is defined as follows:
“When the enjambment technique is used, it changes the practice
of stopping at the end of a verse, the reader is prompted to search
for the missing part (of the sentence), the speed of reading is in-
11 • Bước Ra
creased and one must read visually. This brings up the concept of
time and space in poetry. What is lost, perhaps, is a part of life, of
the past or future, and, as such, the present is nothing but emptiness. Such emptiness is not empty because of the ever-changing,
ever moving character of what is known and what is unknown,
intertwining with each other. Poetry thus arises out of the ambiguities and complexities of syntax, creating musical rhythm.
What is clear, a poem and the perception of rhythm does not lie in
language (words), but in the content of the language. The content
of the language is the movement of emotions through grammar
and syntax.” 1
2/ Common (everyday) language: An example often cited:
“The poet Timothy Steele, while having lunch at a popular eatery,
coincidentally overheard a lover’s quarrel, after which the woman
stood up and, before leaving, said loudly:
x
/ x /
x /
x / x /
You haven’t kissed me since we got engaged.
The saying complies with iambic meter (unstress, stress) and repeated 5 times (penta –), thus forming iambic pentameter. Steele
recognized that form is drawn from common language, and New
Formalism converts common language into poetic forms.” 2
English formalism poetry has two categories, rhymed and unrhymed poetry (blank verses). This is true in part because English
is a polysyllabic language, rich with rhymes, which makes it easy
to create enjambments and transform common language into poetry, whether there are rhymes at the end of the verses or not. In
contrast, Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, wherein it is difficult to convert common language into poetry because it would
not conform to metered (rhyme) schemes. Once the metered
(rhyme) schemes are eliminated and replaced with enjambment
Stepping Out • 12
techniques to create free associations, then Vietnamese poetry becomes no different from English blank verses. Common language
flows into poetry, erasing the musical qualities of metered poetry,
and helps the poet to discover new rhythms and musical qualities. Folk poetry in the six-eight form utilizes simple language but
retains the characteristics of lullabies and songs; plain language
or common language is not spoken like lullabies or songs. New
Formalism is a type of poetry that is read.
3/ In poetic rules, regardless of the form, alliteration techniques
are employed to create musical qualities and rhythm for the poem.
The repetitions of the level / oblique sounds is found in Tang poetry forms, and the equivalent unstress, stress sounds, repeated
five times in one poetic verse, is found in English. In these ways,
traditional poetry creates repeating syllables. When English free
verse wished to escape from these rules and traditional sounds,
they replaced the repetitive syllables by repeating words and repeating phrases. Similarly, in order to escape from the sounds of
rhymed verses, Vietnamese Blank Verse adopted the same technique used in English free verse, that is, repeating words and
phrases in a poem.
4/ Narrative / Story-telling quality is a common characteristic
throughout all poetic traditions that tell a story. In Vietnamese
Blank Verse poetry, this story-telling quality also means that
thoughts and concepts are continuous and not disconnected, as in
free-verse poetry.
At this point, Vietnamese Blank Verse poetry has achieved all four
critical qualities of English Blank Verse to become a separate poetry form. With respects to American poetry, the label of “New
Formalism” was advanced by its enemies, intended as a jab. Later
on, the two founding poets of this movement, Frederick Feirstein
and Frederick Turner, combined it with Narrative Poetry to create
a new movement, Expansive Poetry. Regardless, American New
13 • Bước Ra
Formalism had accomplished its goals of reviving rhymed (metered) poetry, and erased the barriers between poets. Because of
the dominance of free-verse poetry throughout the 20th century,
there were serious rifts, once thought to be irreconcilable, between
the schools represented, on the one side, by Robert Frost, who
described free verse as “playing tennis without nets”, and on the
other side by Ezra Pound, who championed free-verse, trailblazing “make it new”. Only after the arrival of New Formalism did
American poetry finally overcome the fever of the Avant Gard
poetic movements which blossomed after the 1950s. Poetry harmonized between free-verse and metered forms.
The technical term (label) of “New Formalism” was very accurate
with regard to Vietnamese poetry. Vietnamese poetry also reverted, but only took old poetic forms and adapted to new qualities
in order to be transformed into a new poetic form. In addition,
Vietnamese New Formalism was also an assimilation of the traditional and modern, erasing all distinguishing borders between the
English and Vietnamese language, thereby creating an exchange
of cultures. (It is worth noting here that there are many similarities
between the Vietnamese and English language, such as the unstress, stress and level / oblique tones. The only difference is the
strength of the sounds. Old English was mostly monosyllabic up
until the adaptation of polysyllabic words from French and Latin.
This adaptation permits us to readily accept English Blank Verse,
which utilizes alliteration (repetition) in ways that other polysyllabic languages such as French, cannot accept, because they are
not strongly stress.)
Poets used descriptive styles and alliteration techniques to create rhythm in free verse poetry, combined with the critical qualities of enjambment and narration from English poetic rules, and
then channeling into traditional Vietnamese to be the forms 5,
7, 8 words and six-eight blank verse poetry. Quite exceptional,
Vietnamese New Formalism poetry sets new standards while as-
Stepping Out • 14
piring to even greater heights, able to harmonize all the various
poetic forms with free-verse poetry. But then again, why not just
keep on composing free verse poetry, why force conformity with
forms? We already know that there are many ways to differentiate between poetry and prose, but, as for form, poetic rules are the
defining characteristic. When prose is composed, we write to the
end of the line before we start a new line; and so, if the poem has
no form at all, then it becomes a prosaic composition. Although
it harmonizes with free verse poetry, Vietnamese Blank Verse is
more akin to prose poetry than it is to other types of modern freeverse poetry.
Besides accepting Blank Verse poetic forms, via an American
Avant Gard movement, there is another reason. Perhaps ingrained
in the psyche of the refugee/immigrant, there is the motive to understand who we are and who the different peoples around us are,
thus giving rise to the need for the discovery of new poetic forms.
Thereby, a need to employ new means in which to gain mutual
understanding between Vietnamese and other cultures is realized.
And thus, the issue of translation becomes central.
“The purpose of New Formalism poetry is to propel Vietnamese
poetry onto the international stage. That is why translation is emphasized to seek readers from different languages and cultures.
If the old markings are too submerged in cultural or linguistic
systems, then the foreign reader would not understand, including
the young Vietnamese readers presently in Vietnam. But everyone
knows that poetry cannot be truly or fully translated because the
sounds of a language cannot be translated. This is especially true
with traditional poetry, in which the sounds of the language give
rise to the musical quality of poetry.”3
That is why New Formalism poetry must change the way it is
written, in response to the demands of translation. With respect to
words, if normal, everyday language is used to make poetry, then
15 • Bước Ra
poetry becomes absent of rare and archaic words, and the readers
do not get stuck with words when they read poetry. As for style,
poetry moves closer to prose and utilizes repetition in order to create rhythm, so meter is conserved, and traces of prose are removed
to form poetry.”4
Because, upon translation, the sounds of one language are confused in another language, meaning is lost if translations are word
for word. Otherwise, if a verse is translated literally, the result will
be a very distasteful verse in the target language. In poetry, musical and rhythmic qualities are pervasive, linking up emotions and
ideas. So the translation of poetry is no easy task; this we all know.
In order to resolve these matters, we must first change the way
we compose before any translation is rendered. For example, alliteration (repetition) techniques in Vietnamese poetry add a new
critical dimension to rhythm which upon English translation is
preserved. The English reader will be able to read the poem as if it
was composed in English and not in another language originally.
Another advantage is that the English reader is able to empathize
and relate to a foreign country and culture even though they are
reading uniquely different poems. Those who read Vietnamese
will recognize, upon encountering the English translation of the
poem, the outstanding characteristics of Vietnamese poetry for
one simple reason: a bilingual reading is deliberate and otherwise
time-consuming, requiring careful and thorough reading of the
poem.
An American poetry commentator (critic), Angela Saunders, had
the following thoughts about Vietnamese New Formalism poetry
when she wrote her introduction for the anthology Poetry Narrates.
“Poetry itself, in any language, is a traditional literary
method to pass oral accounts and stories from one generation to another. The rhythm and sounds of a poem provide
Stepping Out • 16
the means of delivery and way to remember the verse.
Sounds that flow in the native tongue of one language are
linguistically specific and are not easily translated into
another language. A poem set to melodies and tunes in a
native tongue lose its aesthetic appeal in translation. Thus
a conundrum is created. In an increasingly mobile society,
how does one bridge the gaps between linguistic, cultural, and generational barriers while preserving traditional
heritage?”5
And she recognized the following characteristics of Vietnamese
New Formalism poetry,
“[As] a patterned number of syllables, enjambments
are used at exact syllable counts that remain consistent
throughout the poem. This means that a thought that begins on one line may continue or suddenly stop on the
next. Traditionally, enjambments, or stops, will occur to
highlight specific words or thoughts. This unnatural stop
pattern will often enhance the visual and emotional impact of the poem. Each use of repetition, enjambment, and
imagery allow us to truly see the beauty of the thoughts
each author is trying to portray. The placement of each
word is such that one must consider each meaning implied
by positioning, line endings, and strong sensory imagery.
For each element paints a desired portrait; each word an
integral part of the poem; and each repetition and position
shouting out the thoughts of the author and the translator
and each poem taking on life of its own.”6
Once the poem is translated and able to be read as if it was an
original composition, the result is that American and Vietnamese
poets can read each others’ poems in two languages.7 As examples, such interesting meeting of the minds happened in “Bilingual Poetry” (a bilingual edition) and “Other Poetry Voices” from
17 • Bước Ra
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